New York Times Finds Some News Fit to Print Over and Over Again

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The headquarters of The New York Times. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

One of the tricks The New York Times uses to convey its biases is to cover the same story multiple times. Some news, it seems, is fit to print not just once, but rather two or three times.

Two recent examples of this genre are the newspaper’s treatment of a mass wedding in Manhattan and of an Israel-related UN vote and the postponement of Vice President Mike Pence’s trip to the Middle East.

The Times gave this double coverage treatment to a December 3 wedding of three Israeli couples at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan. A news article by Marianne Rohrlich ran 1,500 words long and was accompanied by nine photographs. And an opinion piece by Bari Weiss about the same event ran 1,300 words and was accompanied by three photographs. Each of the two articles reported that cupcakes were served, more than 40 rabbis participated, and violinists played “Sunrise, Sunset.”

The newsworthy aspect of this is partly that, as one of the two articles put it, “same-sex unions are not permitted” in Israel by the Chief Rabbinate. Fair enough. But same-sex marriage is not permitted in Greece, Italy, China, India, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Switzerland, Vatican City, Vietnam, Thailand, and basically the entire continent of Africa except for South Africa — yet somehow you don’t see The New York Times devoting thousands of words or a dozen photographs to bemoaning that.

Maybe the Times has a special enthusiasm for depicting Israel as intolerant. Or maybe the event got extra attention because it was at Temple Emanu-El, which is the synagogue some members of the Ochs-Sulzberger family used to attend. Not the ones now in charge of the paper: A recent Jewish Telegraphic Agencyarticle reported, “Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. was raised in his mother’s Episcopalian faith and later stopped practicing religion. He and his wife, Gail Gregg, were married by a Presbyterian minister.” The Times’ newest publisher, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, is the son of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. and Gail Gregg.

Then there was American UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s veto of an anti-Israel and anti-American resolution at the Security Council, which the Times has tried to link with the postponement of Vice President Pence’s trip to the Middle East. The Times is so worked up into a lather about that story that it reported it not once, not twice, but three times.

Tuesday’s print paper carried two separate articles on the topic.

The first, by Michael Schwirtz and Rick Gladstone, began, “Punctuating America’s increasing international isolation, the United Nations Security Council demanded on Monday that the Trump administration rescind its decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to put the United States Embassy there.”

The article went on:

Already there are signs that Mr. Trump’s decision has eroded the ability of the United States to act as an impartial arbiter in the peace process.

The Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, who had planned to meet Vice President Mike Pence on a visit to Jerusalem this week, canceled that meeting in protest. On Monday afternoon, Mr. Pence postponed his trip until January.

Vice President Mike Pence is pushing back his long-planned trip to the Middle East…

On Monday, the United States, using its veto power as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, blocked a Council resolution demanding that the Trump administration rescind its decision. Mr. Trump said that he had decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to keep a campaign promise, noting that several of his predecessors had vowed to do so, but never did.

The move outraged Palestinians, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, canceled a meeting scheduled with Mr. Pence in protest.

In case those two stories failed to adequately convey the news, the Times piled on with yet a third, by Declan Walsh. It reported:

On Dec. 6, President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, smashing seven decades of American policy and provoking violent protests. One by one, Christian leaders publicly canceled their meetings with Mr. Pence.

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority — a critical figure in the Trump administration’s ambitious plans for a sweeping Middle East peace deal — also canceled.

Then Mr. Pence himself canceled the whole trip…

You can say that again, and again, and again.

More of Ira Stoll’s media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.

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